Somebody Up There Hates You | Hollis Seamon

"Chemo, radiation, a zillion surgeries, watching my mom age twenty years in twenty months; if that's part of the Big Dude's plan, then it's pretty obvious, isn't it? 

SOMEBODY UP THERE HATES YOU

SUTHY has landed me here in this hospice, where we- that's me and Sylvie- are the only people under thirty in the whole place, sweartogod. We need to keep things interesting. I mean, we're kids, hospice hostages or not. We freak out visitors; I get my uncle to sneak me out for one insane Halloween night. Stuff like that. And Sylvie wants to make things even more interesting. 

That girl's got big plans. 

Only Sylvie's father is so nuclear-blasted by what's happened to his little girl, he glows orange, I swear. So we got a major family feud going on, right here in the hospice. DO NOT CROSS line running down the middle of the hall it's crazy.

In the middle of all of this, really, there's just me and Sylvie, a guy and a girl. And we want to live, in our way, by our own rules, for whatever time we've got. So let's get to it. "

This book is a very typical cancer book, much like The Fault in Our Stars, the two main teenage characters just want to live a normal life, no matter the cost. Of course at the ripe age of fifteen and seventeen the foremost thing in their minds is getting laid, unfortunately achieving that goal may take a lot more than just one night alone. 

Sylvie is a strong female character; she makes her own rules and she expects others to follow them. She doesn't let anything, not even cancer, break her down. Before getting sick she was perfect: popular, smart, pretty. After getting sick she's been stuck in the hospice and meets no one other than Richard. 

Richard is at a much more advanced level of his cancer, he can barely walk: most of the time he uses a wheelchair, his eyesight is almost completely gone, he doesn't eat, from here it's all pretty much downhill. Then one night his uncle takes him out and he gets a taste of the real world, one somewhat normal night. No one knew about his cancer and no one judged him. Then he gets an offer from Sylvie and everything becomes about her, fulfilling her wish, but then living with the consequences that come after. 

I thought this was a pretty good book, although it didn't impact me as much as the TFIOS did. It's not so much emotional as it is just watching the rite of passage for a seventeen year old with cancer, and his hurry to do it.